sleeping under good stars
i knew today would be a long day. i also trusted that the camino will provide, that there will be a bed for me at the municipal albergue in nájera, 32km from logroño. there wasn’t, but more about that later.
as i walk through the suburbs of logroño, i meet a group of hikers or pilgrims that are coming in the opposite direction - a bridge is inaccessible and we all have to find a new camino. the group includes the woman from the netherlands that i met in the dutch economist’s cafe in azketa two days ago.
now i get to know her name. ilse and i talk for some time walking through the nice parque de la grajera. she understands what i mean when i speak about the challenges and pressures on educators in the german school system. their seem to be many similar issues also in the netherlands. the conversation goes different places and when i mention ghana, she tells me that she actually lived in ghana for half a year as a volunteer at the age of 25.
we also talk about rutger bregman and his book ‘human kind’ - whoever has not read it, it is hereby recommended. his second book ‘moral ambition’ is important to read also. it goes further than peter singer’s work on effective altruism.
i tell ilse about our ghana activities - if any of the other readers are interested, just navigate to the projects page on this webside and have a read in the ghana.belo project site.
ilse’s camino ends in navarette, where we say good bye. following volker’s comment on my last post, we could also have said ‘see you further down the road’, maybe we meet again sometime in the future.
in navarette i meet consuelo again. she has been waiting for me to get her credencial stamped with my daily stamp again.
i apply the stamp into her booklet, plus into the pilgrim’s passes of two other pilgrims, that i haven’t met before. carol from sydney and ulrike from berlin.
i move on from navarette and when checking the remaining distance to nájera realize that the municipal albergue has put up a notice online that they are cerrado unos días en mayo por avería.
hm, what to do? where will i sleep tonight? and where will the other 47 souls sleep tonight that have counted on a bed at the municipal?
i speak to two hospitaleros of other, private albergues on the phone, lo siento, estamos completo.
worst case, we will all have to camp under the stars. luckily, there will be no rain tonight.
so, i’m down to the last option, booking.com and in the end i’m able to book what is probably the last available & affordable room in nájera.
on the side of the path i see antoine and two others on their phones, likely just trying to find the other last rooms that may still be available (and are hopefully also affordable).
i end up walking with ulrike and carol, who have buddied up since the first pilgrim’s dinner in roncasvalles. ulrike tells me that - in another worst-case - nájera is going to open the local tronton, the sports hall for pelota vasco for pilgrims to stay in. it was like that the last time on the camino for her. she says that nájera must be cursed somehow.
i hope that everything works out for them tonight, or - even better - they received a bed at the first albergue where they line up to register at the end of a cola larga.
i move on and walk past the municipal albergue towards my b&b.
i see some faces i have seen before, el chico de valencia and others. there are handymen at work to fix the water connection. everybody hopes that it will be a success and the albergue will open after all.
after a shower and a phone call with home i head into town for a quick drink and also to write my notes.
the drink i have with angel from hong kong and kim from amsterdam. the notes i write later - i mean i’m doing that right now, but later from earlier ☻.
angel leaves and kim and i have a good conversation, but get interrupted by new arrivals. to be continued kim, when we bump into each other further down the road to santiago.
off to santo domingo de las calzadas tomorrow. what a name. and what an albergue with 164 beds. hopefully open.
hasta mañana.
